History of Science and Technology
What happened if a turkish astronomer dressed in his traditional national costume, demonstrate the existence of asteroid B 612 in front of his colleagues? In The Little Prince, a fiction book written by Saint-Exupery, the answer of the question are scorn and laughter. While when he dressed up with three-pieces suit(trousers, shirt and a tie), his colleagues gave him a huge appreciation. Is it the tie that make the astronomer, astronomer, or something else? What is scientist, really?
Using The Little Prince illustration, being a scientist is not only a matter of knowing but also its appearance. Does the research using a scientific method, what about the gallat, is the laboratory shopisticated enough, and what about the result? As an output of laboratory observation—or simulation—graphic and numbers help scientist to understand the reality and also convinced other scientist to belief what they are doing. For amateur who see it, number or graphic can also mean nothing. In order to spread knowledge that scientist get from observation, translation become very important. First, translation from reality into graphic, and the second phase is from graphic to daily language. The succesfull of translation is characterize by its acceptance. Therefor becoming a scientist is not as simply as know, but also how to make other people know what we know. By wearing a traditional cloth, the turkish astronomer has failed to translate his knowledge.
Well, we can always debate about essence versus cover, but when we buy or belief something, essence and cover become united.
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